How to Remove Credco from Your Credit Report
Whether you pay for monthly credit monitoring or are just checking in on your credit report, it may puzzle you to see a Credco credit inquiry there.
Credco is an unfamiliar name to most consumers, but that doesn’t mean it's a scam. In fact, CredCo, short for Corelogic Credco, LLC, is a legitimate consumer credit reporting agency approved by the three national credit bureaus. Credco primarily provides lenders with tri-merge credit reports, typically used for mortgage applications and auto dealerships.
If you’re worried that the hard inquiry from Credco is a mistake, it’s important to understand both what Credco is and how a hard inquiry affects your score. You may even be able to get the inquiry deleted from your report by following the tips below.
Credco credit inquiry
Seeing a new name on your credit report, especially one you aren’t familiar with, can be panic-inducing.
Corelogic Credco is a consumer reporting agency that evaluates consumer information (such as Social Security numbers). However, its real specialty is merged soft inquiry credit reports (soft credit pulls) using the FICO method.
This means that it provides lenders with a blended report that combines the data from your Equifax, Experian and TransUnion reports. The lender uses the consumer report created and credit information from a single source to decide whether to approve your application.
Credco boasts compliance with the United States Patriot Act, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Red Flag Rule. It also maintains assurances by providing a Risk-Based Pricing Compliant Credit Score Disclosure with every Credco report.
Who uses Credco's services?
It’s mainly mortgage lenders that use Credco’s services, but the company could also be on your report for other types of loan applications, such as an auto loan. Credco might also run a soft inquiry when you try to prequalify for a loan. Though it won’t affect your score, you may still see Credco on your report when this happens.
We’ll break down the differences between soft and hard inquiries below.
How long will a hard credit check stay on your report?
Unless the agency removes the entry, a hard inquiry will stay on your credit report for two years. This type of inquiry can lower your score during that time period, unlike a soft inquiry. Soft inquiries have no impact on your score. They occur when you check your score with a credit monitoring service, get quotes or pre-qualify for a loan.
When you actually apply for one of these loans or a credit card, the credit check is a little more in-depth. Lenders evaluate your credit reports from one, two or all three of the major credit bureaus to determine whether you’re a responsible borrower. These hard inquiries may lower any or all of your scores.
Fortunately, a hard inquiry should only lower your score by a few points but use caution when applying for new sources of credit. The more applications you submit, the more severely they’ll impact your score. If you’re comparison shopping for a mortgage, try to submit your applications within 14 days of one another to avoid a significant hit to your score.
How to remove Credco from your credit report
Though the Credco entry isn’t likely to hurt your credit score severely, you may still want to get the agency to remove the hard inquiry from your report. If you think Credco is there by mistake or the hard inquiry is one of several negative entries bringing down your score, here are a few pointers.
Dispute the hard inquiry
Whether it’s a case of mistaken identity or identity fraud, a hard inquiry could ding your credit report without your knowledge. Faulty reporting occurs more often than you might think. If that happens, you should contact the company, and potentially the credit bureaus, to rectify the situation.
Thanks to the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1990, you have 30 days to dispute Credco’s hard inquiry if you believe it’s inaccurate. Credco should provide you with details regarding the loan application that triggered its inquiry.
If you happen to hit a dead end with Credco, you should also consider sending a letter of dispute to the credit bureaus.
Here's some additional information on Credco:
Consumer Services Department
P.O. Box 509124
San Diego, CA 92150
Telephone number: 800-694-1414 or 800-637-2422
(Credit Report inquiries) 877-532-8778
Since you only have 30 days to dispute an inquiry, you might want to consider using a free credit monitoring service like Credit Karma. Credit Karma will alert you immediately if a hard inquiry, collection account or any other negative entry appears on your report so that you can respond quickly.
Hire a credit repair company to help with hard inquiries
Did you know you can hire a credit repair company to solve your credit problems?
Whether you’re the victim of identity theft, have hit financial hardship and gotten behind on payments, or your credit is suffering as a result of your financial decisions, a credit repair company can help.
These companies can assist you with a range of credit problems, such as:
- Bankruptcies
- Charge-offs
- Debts in collections
- Late payments
- Foreclosures
- Judgments
- Liens
They can also help to dispute hard inquiries, contacting the bureaus and Credco on your behalf. If you aren’t fond of the idea of chatting with representatives of the company or the credit bureaus, you can leave the task in the capable hands of a credit repair service.
They’ll help you tackle the most damaging aspects of your credit report to get you and your score back on track. Just make sure you check reviews carefully, as there are many scam operations out there masquerading as legitimate credit repair companies.
Getting Credco removed from your report
Applying for a mortgage may lower your score by a few points, but it isn’t going to do much more damage than that. Additionally, the application will only remain on your credit report for two years, unlike collections entries, which stay for seven years. That being said, it's a good idea to take a closer look any time an agency adds a new entry to your report.
If you don’t recall applying for a mortgage or other type of loan recently, contact Credco to dispute it. Or you could leave dealing with Credco and other lenders to one of the nation’s best credit repair companies.
Either way, start monitoring your credit today so you can catch any changes straight away.
Update: This article has been updated to reflect the current contact information for Credco.
Disclaimer: This story was originally published on October 28, 2020, on BetterCreditBlog.org. To find the most relevant information concerning collections or credit card inquiries, please visit: https://money.com/how-to-remove-collections-from-credit-report/ or https://money.com/get-items-removed-from-credit-report/